I Love Naru
by JazzyCat
Summary: When Mai needs a little English tutoring, Naru decides to use the situation to his advantage. Drabbly, Short, Fluffy, ONESHOT. NaruMai, what else?


"Naru-chan?"

"Yes Mai?" His voice carried his displeasure with the suffix added to his name. He was not a 'chan.' but there was no ignoring her once she started asking questions. Which was the inevitable upcoming.

"You speak English, right?" The young girl recalled hearing him speak it quiet fluently on the phone, and knew that he would remember and dare not lie.

"Yes, Mai." His eyes never left the screen of the laptop on his desk.

"I was wondering…" she twiddled her thumbs in an attempt to act cute, but didn't manage to catch Naru's attention with it. "Would you mind…teaching me a little?"

Now Naru's eyes flickered up to meet her own. His fingers froze in the middle of a word and his expression seemed calculating.

"Why would I do that, Mai?" He asked, picking up his work not a second after his abrupt halt. "You're not failing English, are you?" He smirked, being unable to rule out this possibility. She wasn't exactly book-smart, and this was a fact well-known by the older boy.

Mai fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable with the implication, which, to Naru, meant that it had hit the bull's eye. Her face was an angry pink, and her brows pinched together cutely, but her eyes would not meet his from embarrassment.

"The teacher said I've got to do a make-up test tomorrow. But I'm not good with my pronunciation."

Naru stopped typing again, suddenly finding devious thoughts in his mind that he hadn't the time to entertain. There was too much work to be done to be tutoring Mai in English, or even _discussing_ tutoring Mai in English.

But it was rare that he ever found time for self-amusement, he reasoned, secretly calculating the loss of time he could afford for the day. He looked to his pitiful assistant once more and feigned resignation, turning his computer off and sitting back in his chair with a sigh.

"Very well." He could barely contain his own giddiness as she cheered. "Sit," he ordered, pointing to a chair. She obeyed and stared at him intently for further instruction. _Oh, this will be such fun_.

With a few concise questions he was able to discern the material she would need to know, though he would do nothing with the knowledge. She had assured him that the test would be about common phrases and idioms, and nothing related to grammar or sentence structure. This only made his job easier.

"Repeat after me, Mai," the cold boy commanded, carefully sounding out various words, stringing together combinations that would do Mai no good other than to satisfy her employer's secret desires.

The petite woman parted her lips and clumsily stumbled over the same fragment, her cheeks reddening madly with each word. Naru sighed—this was going to be harder than he thought.

"Try again," he ordered, "one word at a time. 'I'."

"I."

"Am."

"A-am."

"In."

"I-i-in."

"Stop stuttering, Mai. Lo-ve." He watched with particular interest as she repeated this word conscious of its translation. For a moment he wondered if she was catching onto him, but quickly dismissed the thought, remind himself that this was _Mai_, after all.

"L-l-ove!" Her voice was more of a squeak than anything.

"With." Naru bent his arms and rested his elbows on his table, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin there interestedly. He leaned forward to watch more closely.

"With," she echoed, her voice surprisingly unwavering now.

"Oliver."

"Ahreevah." He fought the urge to laugh at her blatant mispronunciation of his name, with her inability to properly say the letter 'r'.

"Now repeat it back to me all at once."

Mai took a breath and slowly complied. "I am in love with Ahreevah."

And there it was; the pleasant pounding in his chest that he was so unaccustomed to. It had been much more noticeable a pain before he had come to understand what it meant; in doing so taming it. It no longer acted up just because she walked into a room (unless she walked into a room wearing a tiny skirt and carrying tea), but he was still not free of it. Her smile, her voice was enough to trigger it, and all progress he'd had was lost. So this, in a way, was his revenge, masochistic as it was.

"Good. Let's try another."

"But what did I say?" The girl interjected, asking the one question he'd hoped she wouldn't. He quickly pulled the first answer he thought of and threw it out there.

"You said you love olives."

---

The next day, Mai Taniyama marched into the office after school looking very depressed. In one hand she carried the results of her make-up exam—crumpled faintly from the grip of her fingers—and the magnificent, giant red 'F' across the top.

Mai made tea per her boss' request and sadly shuffled into his office to deliver it once it was done.

"So how did it go?" Naru asked, accepting his beverage once again without thanks.

"Awful. I failed beautifully." As if to prove it, she produced the paper. "I wrote down all the things you taught me yesterday, but the teacher said that it wasn't the right material." She sighed heavily. Naru took the paper from her fingers and held it at length to read. He covered a smirk with one hand as he skimmed over the answers to the various questions.

_I am in love with Oliver._

_I love Naru so much that it hurts._

_I can only think of Oliver._

_I will belong forever to Naru._

And his personal favorite:

_Here is your tea Mr. Davis._

Mai may have failed her test, but it was well worth the time and effort on his part, he decided, to watch those pink lips form words he only wished she meant wholeheartedly.

* * *

**A/N: The ending was a little less happy and fun as I'd intended it, but still not bad. And I kinda lost my creativity at the last bit, about the 'various answers.' You get the idea, though, so feel free to reject my phrases and substitute your own, lol.**


End file.
